Rendez-Vous a Melbourne is the official filmed record of the 1956 Olympic Games in Australia. At the time of its release, there was much controversy in the documentary-filmmaking world over the fact that the Aussies signed over exclusive distribution rights to a French firm, resulting in a boycott from other movie companies. None of this matters when the film is seen today: though not in the same league as Leni Reifenstahl's Olympiad, this 110-minute extravaganza is consistently entertaining. Fifteen cameras were utilized to lens every aspect of the event; it was then up to editors Jean Dudrumet and Monique Lacombe to burrow through miles and miles of film to cull the highlights seen herein. Portions of Rendez-Vous a Melbourne have since resurfaced in practically every Olympics documentary -- not to mention the many TV specials attending the now-biannual event.
Interspersed with interviews from luminaries including Dr. J, Oscar Robertson, Bill Cosby, Jerry West, Mannie Jackson, Marques Haynes, Ernie Banks, and Dr.
An expedition to the dirty abyss of professional sports. The award winning investigative journalist Benjamin Best (CNN Journalist of the Year 2011) takes a global look behind the scenes at the colourful world of sports and exposes the bitter taste behind the multi-billion sports business.
Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
A retired Canadian professional wrestler from a very famous family recounts an amazing life in the ring and discovers an unexpected new family connection.
Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.
In 1976, a 14-year-old Nadia Comăneci became an overnight sensation after she accomplished what no one had ever done before in professional gymnastics—she scored a perfect 10.
Young forester Sixt is wounded one night. Smuggling in the mountains is the reason. By day, the brothers Benno and Simon Schaidler are respectable citizens - by night, they are smugglers and poachers.
A mad doctor uses patients at his isolated psychiatric institute as subjects in his attempts to create longevity by surgically installing an artificial gland in their skulls.
The old and sick detective superintendent Bärlach has to investigate the murder of his colleague Ulrich Schmied, who was murdered in the middle of the country road.
